Once you put your wedding invitations in the mail, you hope that friends and family will call or write to let you know that they’ve arrived at some of their destinations. I’m lucky to have an amazing post office and super responsive guests that resulted in RSVPs in our mailbox within three days. However, I still wanted to track our invitations in a more systematic way.
Since putting delivery confirmations on every envelope was out of the question, I thought I’d embed a Google Analytics tracker into our wedding website to monitor traffic. That plan didn’t work out because I used a pre-made template for our website and I couldn’t do too much editing to the HTML code behind it. I found and alternative that has been working out quite well. The bonus is that it sort of lets me registry stalk without seeing our actual registry.
Bitly.com is a website URL shortening service. I use it for my Twitter accounts all the time so links can fit into the 140 character messages I send out as tweets. I’ve used Bitly for years because it tracks all sorts of statistics for my tweets and I can gauge what content is most interesting for my audience. I decided to use a Bitly url to link to our registry on our wedding website.
Many wedding website services have automated the task of adding a registry, but you can usually opt to set up your own page. I grabbed a logo from Bed, Bath, and Beyond and resized it to work for our page. Then I made the entire image link to the Bitly URL that is tied to our wedding website.
I actually set this up months ago, just before our Save the Date cards went in the mail. I have a few months of data to look at on my Bitly code’s statistics page. Some clicks are obviously from the Save the Dates being received. A few people also clicked around the holidays. Obviously, there’s a little more activity now. My wedding is small, so I’ll never see dozens of clicks. This is about what I expected.
It’s kind of neat to imagine those clicks being tied to an invitation being opened!
Have you done any tracking via your wedding website? What trends did you see?
omg this is so funny–the first thing I said when I found out ppl had begun receiving our invitations already was “I haven’t had a chance to put analytics on our website!” Mr. U called me a nerd hahahah. I didn’t even think to use bit.ly though!
I wish i had known about this months ago! My website tells me how many visits, but it includes my own visits, so i have no idea how many people are checking it out! I hear some of our family talking about it sometimes, so i know they have been checking the website form time to time, but now that the shower invites went out, EVERYONE has the link! i hadn’t even thought of any ways to check out the registry. i’ve just been blatantly looking at it here and there 
people tell me i shouldn’t, but i’m not really sure why i shouldn’t and no one who has said that has been able to give me a reason, let alone a valid one
Maybe I will try something like this…. its not too late, my actual invites won’t go out till may 5th-ish, so I would still like to know if people are checking the website anyway, cuz there is really a wealth of useful information there
thanks Mink!
Whoa! This is definitely a job for tech-savvy-hubby-to-be!! So cool!!
I wish I would have done this instead of just registry stalking, it took the fun out of getting the gifts
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this! I need to update my website tonight anyway (before the invites go out!), so I’ll definitely add the bit.ly tracking, too!
@Miss Unicycle: I was so close to figuring out a way to put a google tracker in there…but I think I’d be mildly obsessed with combing through the data. Nerds unite!
@Ms Rocky Point: Hee hee. It’ll be entertaining to see the clicks, that’s for sure.
@Ocean: You don’t have to be tech savvy at all. If you can post on Weddingbee, you can link an image to a Bitly code.
@Mrs. Pony: I’m trying so hard not to look now!
@Miss Fox: Whoo Hoo! Glad I could help!
This is so neat! I never would have thought of this! (And oddly enough, we use technology like this at work almost daily, but it never crossed my mind to incorporate it into something useful for myself!) What a great idea Mink!
Okay… I totally just updated our wedding website using this technique… so smart!! I can’t seem to get the Kohl’s link to work without it saying “Security Error” though… anyone else have this issue or know how to get around it? Bed Bath and Beyond and Target work just fine using the same method and I am 100% sure I’m not signed into Kohl’s when I grab the registry link… help!
Nevermiiiiiiiiiiiiind…. I got it to work from a different computer, THANK YOU!
Excited about doing this, thanks for sharing!
Brilliant! Thank you so much. I never knew you could set this kind of link up. I’ve just changed my registry link on my website and can’t wait to start tracking the clicks haha
I have analytics on my blog, but haven’t added it to our website. I know I could though since I wound up just creating our website with blogger. But I think part of the reason I haven’t done it yet is because I don’t want to know. I feel completely fine tracking my blog readers… but I guess I feel like tracking friends and family who visit our website is a little sneaky…. I don’t know… I’ll probably wind up doing it eventually thought. Ha!
Aww I wish I would have thought of this! That’s so smart. Unfortunately I get an email anytime someone contributes to our honeyfund so I don’t even need to registry stalk!
You are too nerdy Miss Mink, I love it! Seriously such a smart idea.
This is a fabulous idea. I might have to incorporate this into our wedding website soon!
Not only do many of the games great players live in Los Angeles but it is a poker
friendly town. The United States is the biggest target with 37% of
attacks, the United Kingdom follows with 27%, then South Africa with 15%, China with
7% and Italy with 3%. More to Consider What you can do
is do your own research.
Mrs. Mink, Charlottesville, Virginia Age and Occupation: 34, College Administrator Fiance's Age and Occupation: 40, Craft Beer Consultant Engagement Date: November 26, 2010 Wedding Date: June 2012 Venue: Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards About Me: I left a pre-war brownstone in Boston six years ago to live in a funky, Southern city where Thomas Jefferson, Dave Matthews, and urban chicken keepers enjoy equal social standing. I still love my Patriots and Red Sox, but have fallen in love with Virginia. I work in education and specialize in integrating technology into my work to improve the student experience. I’m a diehard blogger, animal lover, jamband follower, and DIYer. I paint to relax and have transferred by energy from home projects to wedding projects in recent months. When Mr. Mink and I started talking about marriage, we knew our wedding would be outdoors, that my golden retriever would be part of the day, and that the music would be fantastic. We’ve taken a few risks during our planning process and we’ve been enjoying the process immensely!
Latest Gallery Pics